Thanks. How can I identify if this is an actual problem, and I should be getting higher/more consistent frame rate, or if there is no problem and my PC is just not good enough?

As Violation said, especially in your case since you don't meet the minimum requirements, there really isn't a "problem". If your system doesn't meet the requirements then it doesn't meet the requirements, the developers won't put any effort into dumbing down the game even more so they can lessen the system requirements.

It does help to submit a DXDiag though, and it only takes a few moments to do so. It's always possible that the developers can optimize the game to work even better on your specific hardware if it's not working as intended. However, there's no way to tell what the game runs like until you can actually download and play it. Who knows, maybe you'll be able to play it as is.

No. For the simple reason that the game is set up to use IE inside the game itself. When you load certin assets from the dashboard menu, such as Help and Trouble Ticketing, it automatically uses a kiosk version of IE. Adding more browsers would only disturb the Ghost In The Machine, and open a Pandora's box of bugs. Windows machines all have IE, but not necesarily other browsers.

No. For the simple reason that the game is set up to use IE inside the game itself. When you load certin assets from the dashboard menu, such as Help and Trouble Ticketing, it automatically uses a kiosk version of IE. Adding more browsers would only disturb the Ghost In The Machine, and open a Pandora's box of bugs. Windows machines all have IE, but not necesarily other browsers.

Windows also has a default browser option. Everyone has a default browser. If you have never installed any other browser, your default is IE. When I click on links in teamspeak, mumble, vent, and steam they all open my default browser. I am sure they could do the same with the GRO client.

No. For the simple reason that the game is set up to use IE inside the game itself. When you load certin assets from the dashboard menu, such as Help and Trouble Ticketing, it automatically uses a kiosk version of IE. Adding more browsers would only disturb the Ghost In The Machine, and open a Pandora's box of bugs. Windows machines all have IE, but not necesarily other browsers.

Thanks. Just asked because IE is extremely slow on my PC, and Firefox and Chrome are a lot faster. I don't think that will make a difference to the actual game's framerate and smoothness though.

The reason links are opened with Internet Explorer is due to the heavy integration the browser has with Visual Studio/Visual C++. Programs made with those often only open links in IE by default, even if it's not your default browser.